The present invention relates to anchoring elements in general, and more particularly to an anchoring element which is especially suited for the mounting and support of relatively heavy plates on an anchoring base and particularly for the securing of armoring elements or additional armoring to vehicles.
There are already known various constructions of anchoring elements of the above type for use in securing armoring elements or additional armoring to vehicles, among them such including a buffer body of a material that is elastically deformable to a limited extent, such as rubber or any other material having similar resilient and damping properties. This known anchoring element construction further includes two connecting elements rigidly connected with the buffer body and held by the buffer body at a predetermined distance from one another. The connecting elements are movable with respect to one another within limits determined by the deformability of the buffer element, and one of them is connectable to the respective plate to be mounted and the other to the anchoring base.
Anchoring elements of this kind serve the purpose of connecting armoring elements or additional armoring with an anchoring base, for instance with a vehicle to be protected, in such a resilient and damped manner that shot pulses or impacts which act on the armoring elements from the outside and which have magnitudes and directions that are not predictable, are considerably built down.
The heretofore known anchoring element of the type briefly described above and which forms a basis of the present invention is a rubber element with a buffer body that is configured in a rotationally symmetrical manner. A threaded sleeve serving as a connecting element extends into the buffer body from one of the end faces of the latter and is connected with the buffer body by being vulcanized thereto, while the other end is firmly clamped in a second connecting element. During the use of this arrangement in accordance with specifications, the last-mentioned second connecting element with the clamped end of the buffer body is rigidly connected with parts of the vehicle to be protected, and the buffer body extends between the aforementioned parts of the vehicle and an armoring element or the like which abuts against the end face of the buffer body that is remote from the clamped end portion. Then, a fastening screw penetrates through the armoring element into the vulcanizedly connected threaded sleeve and holds the armoring element in position.
What appears to be unsatisfactory in connection with this particular construction of the anchoring element is that, in view of the clamping of the rotationally symmetrical buffer body at one of its end portions in the connecting element which serves as an intermediary for the connection to the vehicle parts, and in view of the provision of the threaded sleeve for the accommodation of the fastening screw, which sleeve extends from the other end face into the buffer body, despite the necessarily considerable axial dimension of the buffer body, only a very limited volume of the buffer body determines its resilient and damping properties. On the other hand, the clamped parts of the buffer body, due to the incompressibility of the buffer material, do not contribute anything, and the parts of the buffer body which surround the vulcanized-in threaded sleeve, make only a very insignificant contribution, to the accomplished resilient and damping action.
Moreover, and possibly even more importantly, the relatively large axial dimension of the buffer body and thus of the entire anchoring element results in relatively huge distances between the connection points of the vehicle or of another anchoring base, and the armoring elements or additional armoring which are to be mounted on such an anchoring base. This, in turn, results in a severely undesirably large silhouette of the armored vehicle which is equipped with its armoring elements by using the buffer bodies of the above-discussed kind.